Jay Phillips, 38, was attacked in this parking lot by three men in 2009.
/ Vancouver Sun

YouTube image of the assault on Jay Phillips in Courtenay in 2009.Handout
/ Vancouver Sun

YouTube image of the assault on Jay Phillips in Courtenay in 2009.Handout
/ Vancouver Sun

YouTube image of the assault on Jay Phillips in Courtenay in 2009.Handout
/ Vancouver Sun

The B.C. hate crime was seen around the world.

Jay Phillips, a black man was circled and eventually swarmed and beaten in a McDonald’s parking lot in Courtenay, by three shirtless white men, one of them calling him a “f---ing n-----.”

The July 2009 event was caught on video and seen by four million viewers on YouTube.

“To be quite honest with you, it’s nothing new to me,” said Phillips, whose mother is white and late father black.

“I grew up like that (in Maple Ridge). Calling me paki and n----- and all sorts of things.”

He and his non-white friends coming back from shooting hoops would be randomly stopped and questioned by police while the “rockers,” mostly white guys, wouldn’t.

“It happened so much, you just got used to it,” he said.

He said he even felt judged in 2009 when he reported the attack.

“When I went to the cop shop to make a complaint, they didn’t really take me serious,” said Phillips. “As soon as they found out there was a video, they were apologizing to me profusely. So I was quite thankful that it was able to get on tape.”

Phillips wasn’t hurt in the attack, but he’s still feeling its effects.

“People still come up to me,” he said by phone from Courtenay, where he lives with his wife and son, now four.

“Some guy just came up to me in Wal-Mart and said, ‘Hey man, you’re that guy.’ All of it is positive. A lot of people haven’t forgotten about it, so it tells me there is some awareness.”

But he also said his friends and neighbours expressed shock that something they’d expect in the U.S. south played out in their backyard.

“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say I didn’t think that kind of thing happened here,” he said. “I just feel like saying, ‘take off your blinders, man. Wake up. It happens. It’s everywhere.”’

The three convicted men — Adam Huber, then 24, Robert Rodgers, then 25, and David White, then 19, all of Courtenay — were on the way for a burger after a day of river tubing when White yelled a racial slur at Phillips as they passed him on the road.

Phillips swore and threw a water bottle at the men’s truck. White called him the n-word and threatened to kill him and his family.

An enraged Phillips challenged all three to a fight.

He was eventually knocked to the ground and punched and kicked in the ribs. The judge ruled that crossed the line from fair fight to assault and convicted all three, calling it a racist attack because of White’s slurs.

Rodgers was sentenced to eight months probation and fined $550. White’s sentence was tougher — a 30-day conditional sentence order, also known as house arrest, plus 12 months probation and a $50 fine — because of his comments.

It’s not clear from court documents what Huber’s sentence was. None of the three men could be reached for comment.

Four years on, Courtenay is still trying to counter impressions that non-whites aren’t safe or welcome.

“This is not who we are,” said Bruce Curtis of the Comox Valley Community Justice Centre.

He said a thousand people turned up for a rally to protest the attack, area communities signed an anti-racism protocol and there have been few to no complaints of racist behaviour since.

Police-reported hate crimes across Canada in 2011 were down five per cent from 2010 but up eight per cent in B.C., where there were 195 in 2011, up from 179 in 2010, according to Statistics Canada.

At 4.3 incidents per 100,000, B.C. was the fourth most hateful province, behind Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Ontario.

The majority of hate crimes are reported in large cities and in 2011, the number reported was up 20 per cent in Greater Vancouver, to 142 incidents in 2011, from 117 in 2010.

About 40 per cent of hate crimes were violent, said StatsCan.

And half the incidents were motivated by race, with blacks being targeted most — accounting for 40 per cent of attacks across Canada — followed by Arabs or West Asians and South Asians, at about 10 per cent each.

Det. Terry Wilson of B.C.’s two-officer hate-crime unit, the only one of its kind in Canada, said hate crimes involve propaganda, spreading hatred against an identifiable group, or assault, such as the one against Phillips.

But, he said, unlike in the U.S., where the accused are charged specifically with a hate crime, in Canada, racial motivation factors into sentencing only. The Crown isn’t forced to prove whether hate motivated an assault, which he said is a better system to ensure conviction.

He said his unit doesn’t keep statistics on hate crimes nor on people who hold racist views.

By Ron Seymour KELOWNA — The gangster accused of ordering the killing of Jonathan Bacon was in a good...

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.